


A Burning Desperation

by aryu



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Amputation, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Inappropirate use of magic, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Solas is Fen'Harel (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:42:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27722300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryu/pseuds/aryu
Summary: When Lavellan stepped out of the Eluvian, magic dripping from his Anchor, his party didn't expect him to beg for the arm to come off. They have to amputate it before they return to the Winter Palace, and Dorian must be the one to cauterize it.
Relationships: Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Lavellan/Dorian Pavus, Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	A Burning Desperation

Sarel groaned, clutching at his bicep as he stumbled towards the Eluvian. His legs felt like they may give out, thighs shaking and vision blurring with every step, but he had to keep going. Dorian would tear him back from the Fade to kill him himself if he died here, and poor Josephine would be loathe to speak with the Council on her own. 

His arm was dripping with magic as he staggered towards the mirror, agony burning through his palm and up into his shoulder. Whatever Solas had done, it had stopped the sporadic meltdowns, but it hadn’t stopped the pain from spreading. 

Sweat was dripping down his back, hands trembling and throat thick with pain, but Sarel managed to step through the Eluvian before he fell flat into the dirt. His vision blurred before he came out the other side, though, and he could barely hear Dorian and Cassandra shout as he fell to his knees. Blood rushed loud in his ears, and his whole world was shifting before his eyes.

Someone was clutching at his shoulder, keeping him upright as the world tilted, and he could feel another set of hands at his palm and one on his back. 

“Cassandra,” he groaned, jaw tight. Sarel felt like he could barely get the words out with how tight his chest was, like a druffalo had sat itself on his sternum and he was being crushed by it. 

Her face filled his vision, blurred and out of focus. He’d never seen her look worried, but concern was written in every line of her face as she knelt before him. 

“I need you to take it off.” Confusion crossed over her face first, then understanding. Her eyes dropped to his arm, dripping fragmented magic from the anchor as sickly green wrapped further around his elbow. 

“Maker, no.” Dorian sounded horrified, and Sarel looked to him with a mask of agony. “You can’t- You’ll bleed out before we make it back. It’ll kill you.”

A bitter smile crossed his lips before Lavellan bent double as he cried out. The anchor flared to life in his palm, and he grasped at it desperately as if the pressure would calm it. 

“It’s either the anchor or a sword, and I’m not going to let it be this Blighted arm,” Sarel managed through gritted teeth when the wave had lessened a little. His hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat and blood, and he looked wild as he met his lover’s gaze. “I won’t bleed out if you close the wound.”

“I’ll kill us both if I try to heal you. I can’t-“ Horror overtook his expression, and Dorian’s hand clenched on Lavellan’s shoulder as he realized what the Inquisitor had meant. Another wave of pain washed over him, leaving him gasping, and the mage struggled to keep him upright and out of the dirt. “You can’t ask me to do that. It’ll- I’ll burn your whole arm if I do it. I can’t- I can’t do that to you.”

Sarel’s face crumpled, and Cassandra straightened, looking to Bull as the elf choked on a sob. “Dorian, I’m going to die,” he pleaded, eyes full of tears as he clutched at his arm. “I need you to help me or I’m going to die here.”

The mage didn’t say another word. He set his jaw, straightened, and nodded. There were tears on his cheeks as he squeezed at his Amatus’ shoulder, and he drew his staff. 

“Help- Help me out of my coat, please.” His hands were shaking, and Lavellan struggled to peel off his gloves. The leather stuck to his skin, and waves of pain were shooting up his arm more often now. He could barely get his coat off, struggled to pull up the sleeve of his undershirt before Cassandra knelt to tear it off at the shoulder. 

Bull drew his greataxe. Sarel was really crying now, bending to lay his arm out over a boulder beside them. He didn’t have time to question it. Solas had promised it would kill him, and the pain, the way it had been flaring up now for months… There was no other choice. It came off now, or he’d be dead before they made it out of this maze. The Dread Wolf may have betrayed him, but Solas would always be his friend. As much as Sarel didn’t want to, he trusted him.

“I’m sorry, Boss.” Cassandra’s hands pressed into him, one pinned to his palm and the other folded around his bicep, and Bull loomed over them. Sarel could hear Dorian sob beside him, but he couldn’t bear to look at him. Creators, he was never going to come back from this, but Lavellan would bleed out before they got back to the Palace. This was the only option they had, gruesome as it was. 

“Take a breath, Inquisitor,” Cassandra instructed, voice even. He did, chest shuddering, before Bull raised his weapon. Then, his breath left him with a cry so loud it likely woke every demon in the Fade. The greataxe clanged violently against the stone, sounding wet and thick as it tore through flesh and muscle, and Bull raised it again to split the bone. 

Everything went white, and his entire body felt like it was on fire. He’d never experienced so much pain in his life, and Sarel wished more than anything that he’d gone unconscious. Instead, he listened to the sickening noise of his arm separating from his body, heard it thwack against the dirt as Bull hacked through the remainder of it. His throat was burning, he must have been screaming, but all he could hear was the blood pounding in his head as his sight returned and he watched red pour from the gaping wound. 

“Dorian, now!” Cassandra was shouting, and Sarel squeezed his eyes shut as his world tipped. Surely nothing could be worse than the pain in what remained of his limb now, indescribably great in a way he’d never known was possible. 

Then, it got worse as fire licked over the savage wound. Sarel was screaming again, choking on his sobs as Dorian burned him, Cassandra’s hands on him the only thing keeping him upright. The blood stopped pouring from his bicep almost immediately, skin shriveling and blistering where the flames touched him. The magic felt like it was burning every nerve in his body, and even when Dorian had ended the spell it felt like he was alight. 

“ _Amatus_ ,” he was sobbing, grabbing for the elf desperately as he slumped, green eyes glassy and far off. Dorian clutched at him almost violently in his panic, cradling the elf to his chest while he cried. Lavellan’s face went slack, body lifeless as he leaned into the mage. His chest barely rose with breath, but his whole body was trembling, voice wrecked with near silent cries. 

“We need to get back, now.” Cassandra’s voice sounded so far away, and Sarel whimpered as he squinted to look for her. He could feel Dorian’s arms shaking around him, could hear him sobbing as he clutched his Amatus close. 

The Iron Bull hefted his weapon over his shoulder, and Sarel’s blood stained his back as he secured it. “I’ll take him,” he promised, and he knelt to lift the elf into his massive arms with the care of someone holding a newborn for the first time. Lavellan was sickly pale, his arm a horrible mess of reds and yellows and blacks, and he turned his face weakly into Bull’s chest as a breath shuddered out of him. 

Dorian was still crying as they turned to rush from the Eluvian. His arm remained limp on the ground, left seeping blood and burning with the Anchor’s energy, glowing green as the glass sealed behind them.

* * *

“Does it hurt?”

Sarel sighed, staring up at a ceiling far too ornate for his taste. He missed the trees, the torn fabric of his tent, the cool air of Skyhold. Why had the world chosen  _ him _ to be thrown into this never ending disaster?

“The salve helps,” he answered quietly, lifting ghost fingers to stretch towards the sky. His bandaged stump barely responded, and his hand was invisible before his eyes, though he could swear he could still feel the Anchor burning in his palm. 

Clearly, it hadn’t been the answer Dorian wanted. He huffed, and his mustache scratched at the bare skin of Sarel’s shoulder as he buried his face deeper there. 

Bull had stormed out of the Eluvian with him three days earlier, the group of them covered in blood and sweat, and they’d rushed the nearest healer to their party as soon as their soldiers had seen what had happened. The magic knit his skin shut, stopped the bleeding and healed the blisters left by the burns, but the ugly scars that licked up his bicep and over his shoulder from the Anchor’s magic and from Dorian’s flames remained. That, and the constant agony of the limb remaining in his mind. Would that ever heal?

“Perhaps I should try to learn some healing spells again,” Dorian mused, palm warm against the elf’s bare hip beneath the blanket. He left tomorrow, bag already packed to head back to Tevinter. Sarel was returning to Skyhold with their troops to gather Solas’ things. Their friends had made plans to scatter with the Inquisition's resolution. Soon, he’d be utterly alone. How was he supposed to breathe without Dorian after all of this?

“I suppose that’s not a bad idea.” They both knew he wouldn’t. What would be the use when he would soon be surrounded by mages at every turn? There wasn’t one. If Tevinter wanted Dorian dead, he’d be gone before he could get the chance to mend himself. Of that, Sarel was positive. 

“There’s a healer returning with you, isn’t there?” Dorian asked, his voice smooth in Lavellan’s ear as he shifted his head on their shared pillow. They hadn’t spoken much of what had happened, but Dorian was acting, mostly, like it hadn’t happened. “You should make sure you’re traveling with a healer.”

The elf sighed, shaking his head as he shut his eyes. He was exhausted, felt weaker than he ever had before, but the healer had told him he would be for a while while his body adjusted to the change. Magic could only do so much, after all. His body needed to repair the rest, and that would take a lot out of him. 

“I’ll be fine. It’s just- I have enough salve to make it there and back. As long as I keep the bandages changed, I should be fine.” As long as he didn’t have to look at it, he could keep pretending. Maybe if he kept wishing that things were normal, he’d wake up and this would have been a dream. 

He never woke up, though. In the morning, Dorian kissed him goodbye, and he whispered his ‘I love you’ into Sarel’s hair. He folded a hand around the sending crystal at his throat, kissed him again, and Lavellan watched him ride until he’d vanished over the bridge. 

Without his clan. Without Solas and the Inquisiton. Without his friends. And without his heart. How was he meant to survive this? 


End file.
